Need your feedback on the JD-Xi

Positive-All in one machine, a DAW is great, but I find myself spending more time just exploring the sounds.

Improvement-An "Official" JD-XI editor, I know it costs Roland $$ to develop software and the machine is only $499, but well worth it. FYI on the JD-XI the Menu takes you much much further down into a granular level of tone development, the menu process can be a bit tedious however.

Keep- supporting even the legacy products, it seems like Roland's products have a shelf life of less than 2 years, Roland Juno-G is a good example.

Positive : Great all 'rounder and immense power for a board this size and weight. Very workflow friendly with minimal menu diving. Still lots of things to tweak buried in the menu screens but I like how fast I can get an idea down.

Improvement : Give the Drum track a level setting that affects the volume of all the drums on the track at the same time. So you once you have your levels set on the individual drums you can you can raise and lower the overall track level with out having to go in edit each drum individually again. maybe SHIFT + LEVEL Knob?
Someone already had a thread about this. ^

Improvement : Make the reverb and delay affect each track individually instead of being global. Each drum would needs its own rev/del also.

Improvement : Make SHIFT + Rev or Del knob edit the send level for whatever track you're editing and Shift + Effects On/Off switch between output assign EFX2 and DIR. Also SHIFT + TYPE should switch between the different types of delays and reverbs etc.

Improvement : Add swing to the arpeggiator.

Keep : Keep the ability to Real time record , TR-REC and Step record. I love how flexible this synth is for recording. I can record anything I want, anyway I want to. That makes it feel more like an instrument and less like another run of the mill mini synth.

Keep : LED's! The JD-Xi (and the JD-XA) are some of the best looking synths Roland has come out of with in a while IMO. Very Modern looking yet old school. Dystopian, Perfect.

Bonus Wishlist : Give the JD-Xi a 16 track Sequencer and a master fx channel with eq/comp/reverb
Edited for spelling.

Positive - combination of digital synths, analog, drums, pattern sequencer. Lots of bang for the buck in a single board.

Improvement - User Interface and Design. Touched upon when I answered the general Roland question. Glossy, low-contrast surface not ideal for very dark or very bright studios. Menu organization is cryptic at times, and doesn't lend itself to tweaking sounds. A synth like this without ADSR on the surface is frustrating, and could have been addressed by making those 4 effects knobs generic and assignable, or by providing a software editor. Casio's XW-P1/G1 synths may not sound as nice, but they made better choices in most of these areas.

Keep - (and expand!) Axial support for JD-Xi, and try to make an effort though that to broaden the appeal and use of the Xi beyond the low-hanging and fickle fruit of the EDM crowd. JD-XA is getting some brilliant sound packs. JD-Xi is sort of hit and miss here. It's a great synth for ambient, retro synthwave, experimental, etc as well. Use Axial to take the Xi beyond its EDM-oriented factory presets, not to give us more of the same.

Thanks for the great feedback! Keep 'em coming :)

Being a fan of classic Drum Machines, I have purchased my JD-Xi. So here we go.

Positive - Very good classic Drum Machines samples, the TR808 and 909 are killer! The synth sounds are nice, specially the Pads. On pianos, Wurli is good. Very usable step sequencer.

Improvement - Ac Piano is weak. Analog part is too simple. I do not like the futuristic design of it, it could be more retro style, with wood end caps. The keybead is too fragile. I had problems with LEDs that stoped to light.

Keep - the drum machines and step sequencer.

Cheers,
Julio

Positive - excellent value for money - best yet IMO

Improvement - EDITOR!

Keep - feature rich packed into a small box

Forgot to mention:

Improvement: It really need an Editor, because the PCM / SuperNatural synth has several parameters to be programmed.

More soundbanks for the JD-Xi on the Axial site and an editor, then Im pleased... ;)

Also for me: more soundbanks and an editor!

I love the JD-Xi! I think it's a great starter synth, got tons of features for reasonable price, and sounds great!

Positive: great drums (big reason for me getting the Xi). The combo of analog + digital +drums + sequencer is really useful for sketching idéas quickly. Love the way it looks (although it's kinda hard to see stuff in really dark/light places)



Could be better: It would be nice with an easy quick way to string a larger number of sequences together, way more expanded than using the favourites func.

The possibility of running the analog part through the digital filters would be awesome.

ADSR really should have dedicated hands-on controls! Also a number of user-assignable hands-on controls would be extremely useful, so you could map them to your often used but hard to get at parameters.

And the thing I think is most wanted, by me and other users, is AN EDITOR!!! Really, get it done ;P

Thanks for all your inputs everyone! Great comments all round. I'm now pulling everything together and so no longer require more data.